An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science

In this hugely entertaining sequel to the New York Times best-selling memoir An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins delves deeply into his intellectual life spent kick-starting new conversations about science, culture, and religion and writing yet another of the most audacious and widely read books of the 20th century - The God Delusion.

Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

In his provocative new book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion - including faith, dogma, and revelation - leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions.

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous evolutionary biologist, presents a gorgeously lucid, science book examining some of the nature’s most fundamental questions both from a mythical and scientific perspective. Science is our most precise and powerful tool for making sense of the world. Before we developed the scientific method, we created rich mythologies to explain the unknown. The pressing questions that primitive men and women asked are the same ones we ask as children. Who was the first person? What is the sun? Why is there night and day?

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet", focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument". Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics.

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.

Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind

What is it like to be a preacher or rabbi who no longer believes in God? In this expanded and updated edition of their groundbreaking study, Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola comprehensively and sensitively expose an inconvenient truth that religious institutions face in the new transparency of the information age - the phenomenon of clergy who no longer believe what they publicly preach.

Sacred Cows: A Lighthearted Look at Belief and Tradition Around the World

Well into the 21st century, our species continues to participate in beliefs and customs that seem more suited to the Bronze Age than the Information Age, some of which involve poisonous snakes, holy smoke, urine bubbles, crystals, tarot cards, aliens, costumed virgins, and, of course, an offering plate. Join Seth Andrews for a random romp across the planet and a humorous look at some of humanity's Sacred Cows.

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

Lying

As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption - even murder and genocide - generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie.

Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation

Sparked by a provocative comment to BigThink.com last fall, and fueled by a highly controversial debate with Creation Museum curator Ken Ham, Bill Nye's campaign to confront the scientific shortcoming of creationism has exploded in just a few months into a national crusade.

A Manual for Creating Atheists

For thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith - and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, this audiobook offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith - but for talking them out of it.

Fear of Physics

Fear of Physics is a lively, irreverent, and informative look at everything from the physics of boiling water to cutting-edge research at the observable limits of the universe. Rich with anecdotes and accessible examples, it nimbly ranges over the tools and thought behind the world of modern physics, taking the mystery out of what is essentially a very human intellectual endeavor.

Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism

Atheism's leading lights have long been intellectuals raised in the secular and academic worlds: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens. By contrast, Jerry DeWitt was born and bred into the church and was in fact a Pentecostal preacher before arriving at atheism through an extraordinary dialogue with faith that spanned more than a quarter of a century. Hope After Faith is his account of that journey. DeWitt was a pastor in the town of DeRidder, Louisiana, and was a fixture of the community. In private, however, he'd begun to question his faith.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

From multiple New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, and "new atheist" Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds.

The God Delusion

Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.

The New Yorker Festival - Richard Dawkins: Disciple of Darwin

Richard Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. His books include the best-selling The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Ancestor's Tale, and A Devil's Chaplain, a collection of essays. He has received the International Cosmos Prize and the Kistler Prize.

Publisher's Summary

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. He paints a vivid picture of his idyllic childhood in colonial Africa, and later at boarding school, where he began his career as a skeptic.

Arriving at Oxford in 1959, Dawkins began to study zoology and was introduced to some of the university's legendary mentors as well as its tutorial system. It's to this unique educational system that Dawkins credits his awakening. In 1973, provoked by the dominance of group selection theory and inspired by the work of William Hamilton, Robert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith, he began to write a book he called, jokingly, "my best seller". It was, of course, The Selfish Gene.

This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

I have been a great fan a Dawkins since I read The God Delusion - then I read all his other books, which was a treat as I am a science nut. I have also watched every video he has ever made that was available in the US. I was so excited to read his autobiography that I pre-ordered the physical book, plus the audible version. He and his wife do a masterful job of reading his work.

I hate to say, but I found this book a disappointment. It was rather boring - filled with the names of all his friends, mentors, teachers, etc. He mentions his first wife, Marion Stamp, only as a scientific collaborator, without a word about her personality or their relationship. It really was about the making of a scientist. Period.

I certainly didn't expect a class act like Dawkins to write a tell-all autobiography, but this was way too dry. Very few tidbits about about his personal life, pets, or other interests would have been a treat.

Dawkins from boy to young man, grad student to professor, science author to prolific and ardent spokesperson of disbelief. This book is the memoir of one of the greatest evolutionary biologists and an interesting character indeed. Very little science can be found inside, but you will get the full story of how Richard Dawkins came to be who he is today.

This is not exactly fascinating stuff unless you're a Dawkins fan, so I'd advise you to keep that in mind. If you are a Dawkins fan, it's a worthwhile read.

Richard Dawkins is an amazing scientist. I have always thought so and this first part in his autobiography trilogy do reinforce my favorable view on Dawkins. His greatness, in my opinion, primarily lies in his unequaled ability to convey science to the general public using a language which should make him eligible for the Nobel prize in literature (seriously!). His book, the selfish gene is probably the book that have meant the most to me personally, all categories, and reading excerpts from it in this book made me remember what a great book it was, and still is. In fact, reading “An appetite for wonder”, made me decide to re-read Dawkins original best-seller (which I am now doing).

Yes, Dawkins is a fantastic writer and scientist, but this book, on the whole, did not live up to my admittedly high expectations. Perhaps others will disagree with me but I am not personally very interested in great people’s childhood, unless it is truly extraordinary. Yes Dawkins grew up in Africa and that was probably interesting, however, I would personally have preferred if this section was significantly shorter or left out.

The book gets more interesting when Richard gets into Balliol college, Oxford. As a University teacher one of my favorite sections of the book was Dawkins description of the education system in Oxford. Their system in which students each week study a new topic by reading up on the scientific literature and try to form hypotheses, and then discuss what they have learnt with tutors who are also leading scientists made me, well… jealous. He claims that students at oxford never asked the question, “will this be on the exam?”, which is a question I get all too frequently…

Following his description of the education system in Oxford a semi-interesting description of his early years in academia follows. The book, in my opinion reaches its climax towards the end when Dawkins discusses and reads excerpts from the Selfish Gene. I realize it may sound nerdy but just hearing a few lines from that book can increase my pulse significantly, and it was interesting to get to understand how the book came about. I was also pleased to find out that, like myself, the great writer Richard Dawkins does not write his book in one go. Rather, every sentence that he writes have been written and re-written many times. Like the natural selection of biological organisms, this way of writing should lead to evolution of better sentences and in the end a better book. This is certainly the case with the Selfish Gene.

There is nothing wrong with this book. I would be quite interesting to someone new to Dawkins. If you have read many of his books and watched the BBC specials, then you are already familiar with a good portion of the story.

I would have said his performance was excellent except that I went to an appearance where he read from the book. His performance in person was quite funny, lively and emotional. The Audible read was more reserved.

I found the book didn't grab my attention until he wrote about his graduate work and beyond. It seemed to end abruptly as well. I have a feeling an authorized 3rd person biography would be much more interesting.

You know you're going to read it anyway. Why bother reading these reviews? It's good, it's just not his best

I am a big fan of Dawkins. His book the God Delusion has been one of the most influential in my life and the Selfish Gene was ground breaking in the 70's and is still relevant today. So it was with great enthusiasm that I dove into his autobiography.

Although most authors shouldn't read their own works, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dawkins. He is charming and funny. I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed hearing about his ancestors, his childhood in Africa, and the sad life he endured as a little boy sent away to boarding school. I was also able to get a sense of his budding intelligence and his "appetite for wonder."

But that is the only good news in this book. For reasons only he knows, as he moves into his early adult years and begins to teach at university, he becomes bogged down in very detailed and pedantic discussions about some of his research. My god, it was tedious and uninteresting. Then the book is over and he has yet to get to the 70's when he wrote the Selfish Gene - the part of his life that I was most interested in and for which he is best known. I was fed up and disappointed by the end of the book. Unless you have an unquenchable interest in all things Dawkins, use your time more wisely and listen to one of his other books and hope that his next installment is more interesting.

True to British fashion, this book is not the easiest for Americans to read. It seems to wander, but I've found that the structure of British writing is different from what Americans expect. I'm sure I'll get back to this, but I take it in small doses.

I would definitely recommend it to a friend, particularly if that friend is a fan of the work of Richard Dawkins.

Would you recommend An Appetite for Wonder to your friends? Why or why not?

Yes, it is a good first half of a memoir of how Richard Dawkins became a scientist. As some other reviewers have already stated, I would have enjoyed more personal stories, especially after he arrived at Oxford, but nonetheless, it was entertaining. I'm excited for part two, which will cover the rest of his work, his involvement in the atheist movement and his new marriage to Lalla Ward.

What does Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I am a big fan of audio books in general, but personal memoirs, especially when narrated by the authors, are incredible. It's as if you're sitting in the room with them while they regale you with their life story. Richard Dawkins does a fantastic job and Lalla Ward does a great job narrating the diary entries of his mother.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes

Any additional comments?

“An Appetite for Wonder”, it is certainly enjoyable. You get a view into the life of a scientist that has not been revealed until now. I greatly enjoyed the parts of the book describing his early childhood in Africa. It sounded like a unique and fascinating place to spend your early years. I was entertained by the songs he remembered. Being the audiobook, he sang the songs, which added to the fulfillment of the story.

As the secondary title states, this book is very much about how he became a scientist. Through his early years, he described personal stories, but they seemed to vanish after he got to Oxford. He described in detail the names and relationships he held with faculty and colleagues, which was interesting, but there was little in the way of personal stories, which was a bit of a disappointment.

One of the biggest surprises to me was how much Mr. Dawkins enjoyed (not sure if he still does) computer programming. When he was in school, computers were in their infancy, but that didn’t stop him from taking a fascination in them. He nostalgically described times when he taught himself to program and then applied the programming to his research in biology and ethology.

Overall a good, quick read and must for any fans of Mr. Dawkins or his work, particularly “The Selfish Gene”, which he dedicates an entire chapter to. I am very interested in part two, the second half of his life, which includes the remainder (and bulk) of his work, his involvement in the atheist movement and a new marriage. I am anxiously awaiting the release of that book, which I hope to listen to again as if I’m sitting with Mr. Dawkins.

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